Call me, Ishmaelhttps://disfordragon.wordpress.com
I'm deeper than I thought.Sat, 03 Dec 2016 08:26:34 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngCall me, Ishmaelhttps://disfordragon.wordpress.com
It’s my party, and I’ll cry if the laws of physics permit me to.https://disfordragon.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/its-my-party-and-ill-cry-if-the-laws-of-physics-allow-me-to/
https://disfordragon.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/its-my-party-and-ill-cry-if-the-laws-of-physics-allow-me-to/#commentsSun, 21 Aug 2011 18:13:14 +0000http://disfordragon.net/?p=1754Continue reading It’s my party, and I’ll cry if the laws of physics permit me to.]]>One of today’s most pressing philosophical questions is: a) Do human beings possess free will and the capability to exercise it? My recent readings have allowed me to arrive at a sort of answer,* the short version of which is, No, but effectively yes.

It is easy to get depressed by reading neuroscience books like William Hirstein’s Brain Fiction or Daniel Wegner’s The Illusion of Conscious Will, which seem to break us down into the automata described by Descartes, whose intentions are merely illusory. “…[P]eople experience conscious will quite independently of any actual causal connection between their thoughts and their actions,” writes Wegner (64). Well and good if you’re sitting in a classroom vying with your peers to seem the most scientifically-minded, but different altogether when, say, your boyfriend professes his love in terms of choice (you), and you didactically disclose that it wasn’t his choice at all, in the traditional sense, but merely a fortuitous combination of circumstance and cascades of chemical reactions beyond his conscious control. In fact, this sort of talk can really ruin the mood.

In part, popular media are to blame. Their oversimplification of scientific findings creates a backlash against science as a whole, particularly among the religious right, but more broadly w/ anyone (everyone) who has ever entertained any kind of higher/abstract thought process. In his recent article for The New Yorker about secularism, James Wood laments that, “These days, one is continually running up against a crass evolutionary neuroscientific pragmatism that is loved by popular evolutionary psychologists and newspaper columnists.” Studies are reduced to something less than the sum of their parts, and the result are easily digestible but wholly unsatisfying data bytes.

“They can make mice gay now,” my boyfriend said, in an effort to further rile me after the delivery of a diatribe similar to the previous paragraph.

“See! This is exactly what I’m talking about!” I cried, taking the bait. “ACTUALLY, they reduced serotonin levels in the mice’s brains to such an extent that they became less selective about partners, thus displaying a higher frequency of sexual behavior towards other males. That’s not the same thing as creating a homosexual preference.”

Still, alarmist headlines about the findings’ implications for human sexuality abounded in the blogosphere, and evangelical counselors no doubt started doling out SSRI’s in addition to prayer, in hopes of reforming their queer clients. While it is perhaps true that the simplest explanation is likely the correct one, it does not do to ignore elements for the sake of elegance. To paraphrase Einstein, a theory should be as simple as possible, but not simpler. Contrary to popular belief, science does not seek to diminish the complexity of the human animal, but to illustrate it. We should not treat a new finding as a stand-alone datum, an all-encompassing explanation, but rather as a small piece of a vast and vibrant puzzle that contributes to the overall picture w/o defining it. The gaping holes that remain are perhaps frustrating for those restless, doubtful individuals who believe that being provided with a sort of explanation for the world will ease the strife of their lives, and religion does offer a completed puzzle…but many of the constituent pieces are a murky black, so that while the picture is entire, it is no more clear.

A false dichotomy has been created in the collective consciousness: that one must either be a) an unthinking machine, or b) the mysterious, soulful creation of some omnipotent deity whose laws and ways we will never fathom.

Here’s where the delightful book The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow comes in.

“While conceding that human behavior is indeed determined by the laws of nature, it also seems reasonable to conclude that the outcome is determined in such a complicated way and with so many variables as to make it impossible to predict. For that one would need a knowledge of the initial state of each of the thousand trillion trillion molecules in the human body and to solve something like that number of equations. That would take a few billion years, which would be a bit late to duck when the person opposite aimed a blow” (32).

There are underlying physical laws that dictate human behavior, but they are so intricate and numerous that they are of negligible use when it comes to everyday life. Thus, it behooves us to rely on an “effective theory”–rules that do not necessarily hold true at the physical level, but whose application is useful in making extrapolations given limited time and finite resources. “In the case of people, since we cannot solve the equations that determine our behavior, we use the effective theory that people have free will” (33).

Just as we cannot predict the future, past behavior cannot be imputed to a simple instinct for survival either. Admirable traits like altruism and empathy perhaps arose because they were conducive to self-perpetuation, but that is not why they continue to occur. As eminent primatologist Frans B. M. de Waal states in an essay, once a tendency evolves, “it is not essential that each and every expression of it serve survival and reproduction….The behavior follows its own autonomous motivational dynamic.” Because of the practical impossibility of calculating the exact conditions per individual that led or could lead and individual to certain behavior, it is much easier to say that he or she chose to do it.

So no, you do not have free will, as such…but can–indeed must–behave as if you do. It’s sort of like having money in the bank. You don’t have the cash in hand–it really doesn’t exist but as a number on a screen–but can still enjoy spending it on nice things.

*As with most non-religious “answers,” it creates more questions than it resolves.

Happy Valentine’s Day, gentlefriends! To me, Valentine’s Day is just another day that isn’t my birthday, but I understand that for some people it inspires a treacly sort of sentimentality. As a nod to the holiday, today’s examples will all treat on the theme of romance. XOXO.

Epixeuxis: A word is used both first and last in a sentence.

Fig. 4.5 Epixeuxis

Epanelepsis: The repetition (often successive) of a key word. For reference, see pretty much any song by Rihanna.

Fig. 4.6 Epanelepsis

Expletive: Not the use of profanity, but rather the insertion of a superfluous word or phrase for rhythmic purposes–most notably to slow the reader’s momentum and imbue the words/clauses on either side of the Expletive with special emphasis.

Fig. 4.7 Expletive

Litotes: A assertion is expressed through the refutation of its opposite: an indirect and elegant device whose effectiveness rapidly diminishes with overuse.

Fig. 4.8 Litotes

Rhetorical Question: The positing of a question to which the logical answer is obvious. A good way to establish a rapport with the reader and leave them predisposed to agreeableness.

Fig. 4.9 Rhetorical Question

Anantapodoton: The conclusion (main clause) of a sentence (Syncresis) is implicit, rather than stated. Ensure there are enough hints for the reader to make the desired inference!

If Syntax provides the framework for an idea, then Emphasis highlights and beautifies it, adding color and vibrancy to what otherwise might be a bland and monotonous argument. Emphatic devices often augment and complement already-present cadences that the reader instinctively inserts into their interpretation of a text. They are also among the most fun, encouraging creativity and wit. Ideally, the use of Emphasis controls and guides the reader’s aesthetic experience although, as with any form of ornamentation, its judicious use is recommended; it can be quite hard to draw your audience’s attention to the blue if you are also bombarding them with purples, greens and reds.

Aporia: A decisive statement is leavened with doubt or uncertainty. Useful for undermining assumptions and subtly underscoring the multiple facets of an issue. A good way to introduce an argument.

Fig. 4.0 Aporia

Climax: A list is ordered in such a way as to build suspense, beginning with the least important and ending with the most dramatic element.

Fig. 4.1 Climax

Asyndeton: The deliberate omission of conjunctions. Though the actual number of words is reduced, their continuous flow gives the impression of overflowing and bounty.

Fig. 4.2 Asyndeton

Polysyndeton: The antithesis of Asyndeton, this device involves the insertion of conjunctions wherever possible; they act as a sort of drumbeat, giving the sentence a slow, methodical rhythm, and help to ensure that each clause is given due consideration.

Fig. 4.3 Polysyndeton

Adianoeta: The disingenuous/sarcastic use of a word or phrase that appears to mean one thing, but is also subject to other, even opposing, interpretations.

I’m awarding the zeugma its own personal section w/i the “Syntax” chapter, as this device has various subtypes, all of which involve different ways of connecting two or more words or clauses with a linking word that is stated only once but implicitly applies to all subjects. This helps avoid tedious and unnecessary repetition, allowing one to say “Jack and Jill went up the hill,” rather than “Jack went up the hill and Jill went up the hill.”

Diazeugma: A single subject is used to link multiple, sometimes disparate verbs.

Fig 3.1a Diazeugma

Prozeugma: The word linking subjects is a verb.

Fig 3.2a Prozeugma

Mesozeugma: The linking word/phrase appears in the middle of the sentence.

Fig. 3.3a Mesozeugma

Hypozeugma: The linking word/phrase appears at the end of the sentence.

All day today I was thinking about what I wrote last night, and not just in the usual finicky way I go over grammar. It is a piece that, I think, betrays my feelings of being unmoored and adrift, something which is reflected in nearly all aspects of my life. Last year at our house, no one really wanted to put up the Christmas tree. The v. idea of it was exhausting and onerous, and I thought, Why bother? It’s not like the day holds any particular significance for us, and my sister and I are too old for Santa Claus now anyway.

Immediately afterwards, I felt a sort of loosening, as if something once deeply lodged inside my head had been exposed and was ready to crumble away into nothingness. I realized then that giving up such rituals is dangerous, for if the Christmas tree no longer matters after 20+ yrs, what would be sacrificed next to indifference?

In the end, we put it up, and were the gladder for it.

I said before that I don’t like religion–or rather, I don’t like the forms it has taken. Many of the values are fine; I can do w/o the fear-mongering, mysticism and misogyny. I have this idea that if I read enough books and watch enough movies, then I’ll be able to patch together that acquired knowledge into an Answer, and I’ll know what to do, based on the work of so-and-so and such-and-such and what’s-her-head. I don’t have one yet, but maybe once I finish reading Le Deuxième Sexe, I will.

My last entry included a lot of quotes by learned men, b/c I don’t know what I think, and am dubious about its worth and worthiness. So I comb through the literature, pretending to be critical, but all along asking the question, What should I do? And if I don’t like the response, I turn petulant. Is that all you have? I demand, stamping my metaphorical foot and demanding an alternative. But why should the onus be on others to supply me w/ one? Is it not more appropriate that I invent my own substitute for the stability and assurance religion brings into life, to find my own raison d’être? And so I continue “perplexed but not in despair,” doing my best in the absence of answers. Doing what I can.

]]>https://disfordragon.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/es-muss-sein/feed/0golubkamuss es sein?https://disfordragon.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/muss-es-sein/
https://disfordragon.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/muss-es-sein/#commentsFri, 04 Feb 2011 03:34:56 +0000http://disfordragon.net/?p=1557Continue reading muss es sein?]]>I’ve been worrying lately, gentlefriends. I think we all have; there is plenty that is worrisome in the world. Lately though, my worries have begun to shape themselves; heretofore vague anxieties have begun to coalesce into a morass of doubt through which all my thoughts must struggle. Worse, I have not found anything particularly comforting w/ which to buoy myself up. I cannot arrive at any kind of satisfactory explanation for the conundrums which I have taken to posing for myself recently, and while normally this wouldn’t bother me so much as arouse my curiosity, I am also at a loss to discover an objective way that I might make what are known as value judgements.

During my freshman year of college, I took a philosophy course called Ethics. To be honest, I don’t remember much of it, but one thought experiment in particular has stayed w/ me: Imagine that there is a machine that can replicate every experience and individual might encounter in real life, to the extent that a person hooked up to the machine would be unable to tell the difference btwn the ersatz world and the real one. Their experiences would be exactly the same (What, you thought the Wachowski brothers came up w/ this first?).

The question then posed to us was, would you prefer to be hooked up to the machine, or to live in the real world? We unanimously voted for the latter option. Okay, our professor said. But why?

We didn’t have an answer. If one was not quantifiably or qualitatively different from the other, why did it matter? Why were we so sure? If we felt so strongly, surely there was a better reason guiding us than just that feeling?

In the latest issue of The New Yorker, Patricia Marx explores the burgeoning friend market. Feeling lonely? You can hire actors to pose as a friend or family member. If you’re looking for something more permanent, you can buy a robotic companion.

My immediate reaction was one of sadness and dismay. How did the people availing themselves of these services come to be so alone? Where were their real friends? Why hadn’t I thought of charging people for the privilege of basking in my presence?

Then again, I was forced to wonder: would going to dinner or a dance class (two things that Marx says rented companions are often contracted to do) w/ a “real” friend as opposed to a “paid” one be intrinsically better? Other considerations aside, would I enjoy the specific experience more or less?

While you might be able to purchase a playdate, you obviously can’t buy a relationship w/ someone. Or can you? If you have someone at your disposal in whom you can confide, who will offer a sympathetic ear, who will accompany you wherever you want to go, aren’t you still getting the experience of friendship, and reaping the same benefits? Does it matter if the feelings are financed, if the outcome is exactly the same? Intuitively, I want to say YES, it matters a great deal…but I am as unable to explain why now as I was five yrs ago.

Last night Stephen Colbert interviewed Sean Kelly, one of the authors of the new book All Things Shining. In the interview, Kelly quoted Neitzsche’s on sacredness, saying that the things sacred in a society are the things which it unacceptable to laugh at or mock. (Somewhat confusingly, Neitzsche also wrote, “Laughter I declare sacred: you higher men, for my sake learn to laugh!”*)

What Kelly means is that there is nothing that really binds us together anymore; we have become estranged from each other. He cited football as one of the few things we have left that allows us to experience connection en masse. Once he mentioned sports I ceased to pay attention, and as he talked I thought of that scene in Avatar, where all the Na’avi sit together in front of their spirit tree and literally plug themselves in (through these handy wires growing out of their heads) into its roots, in order to participate in a sort of communal prayer. This connection, Kelly seems to believe, is what is missing from our secular age, and leading to all sorts of unpleasant and pesky emotions, like despair. The cure for the malaise is to interact w/ other humans, not just on a social level, but to try and think the same hopeful thoughts and embrace the same beautiful truths.

One man’s cure is another man’s kitsch. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera write that the “feeling induced by kitsch must be the kind the multitudes can share….How nice to see children running on the grass!…How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass!…The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a base of kitsch.” Which is exactly what ecclesiastical doctrine is–a clever amalgam of allegories that use familiar archetypes to inspire a single reaction in a large group.

In a commencement speech delivered in 2005, David Foster Wallace declares that in “the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping.” Furthermore, “an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.”

Not only is it important to maintain the presence of the sacred, but that which is elevated must be chosen w/ care. Not to say there aren’t some worthwhile notions in religion, but is this the only comfort the world has to offer? The best advice of the greatest thinkers of our time? In the quest for a fulfilled and happy life, is my only recourse to try and seduce myself w/ a pretty story about benevolent power and divine purpose?

But what if I don’t want to embrace religion? What if I view it as regression, a step away from the light instead of towards it?

*The Birth of Tragedy, 1886.

]]>https://disfordragon.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/muss-es-sein/feed/2golubkaall you need is lovehttps://disfordragon.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/all-you-need-is-love/
https://disfordragon.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/all-you-need-is-love/#respondThu, 27 Jan 2011 06:56:30 +0000http://disfordragon.wordpress.com/?p=1534]]>A short short story

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you,” she said.

He turned away from the mirror, and finished getting ready for work. 5oo miles away, she did the same.

Appositive: One of the few devices we still learn by name in school, it is the use of a noun to modify or provide additional information about another noun. Commas are usually appended to each end of the appositive in a sentence.

Fig. 3.2. Appositive

Disjunctio: A list of different verbs (preferably alliterative) w/ similar meanings connected in successive clauses recounts the actions of a single subject.

Fig. 3.3. Disjunctio

Epiplexis: A series of aggressively posed rhetorical questions.

Fig. 3.4. Epiplexis

Hyperbaton: A certain word or idea is highlighted by the use of unorthodox word order. Best used sparingly…unless you are Yoda.

Fig. 3.5. Hyperbaton]]>https://disfordragon.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/stylistic-devices-an-illustrated-primer-part-iv/feed/2golubkaappositivedisjunctioepiplexishyperbatonoldie but goodiehttps://disfordragon.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/oldie-but-goodie/
https://disfordragon.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/oldie-but-goodie/#commentsWed, 26 Jan 2011 00:25:28 +0000http://disfordragon.wordpress.com/?p=1515Continue reading oldie but goodie]]>Recently, my friend sent me a short story I had written a six yrs ago. I thought it had been lost forever in the great hard drive meltdown of 2005…but then he sent me an email saying he had read it, and that he thought I should be a writer, and also that “the original computer [he] had this saved on also crashed, but we recovered everything from the hard drive and put it onto this computer. This is a lucky document!” ^_^

It was interesting to see how I wrote back when I was still in high school, to see what ideas I was preoccupied w/. There are a fair amount of problems in this story, of course, anachronisms or improbabilities that may disturb the reader. But overall, I’m proud of this little piece.

1945—Here it is cold. Here the ground is as vast and empty as the barren night sky above. There is no moon; there are no stars. The world is icily silent, comfortless. This is not a good place, it is not a stopping place. And yet, the soldier does not think he can take another step. He has been walking for two days. He is going home. The war is over! Yes, the war is over. But there is not much to celebrate right now. His backpack is empty of food, weak and deflated, and clings to back like the remains of some shriveled old cocoon he cannot shed. He has only a little water, and it is probably frozen; he can no longer hear it sloshing in his canteen, harmonizing with his footfalls. He is not cold. Well, he does not feel cold. He knows he must be cold, because his breath is no longer coming out in silky white puffs. Bad sign. For a while, his entire body hurt, especially his feet in their tired boots, but now he feels nothing. He thinks that maybe he took a wrong turn somewhere; stepped out of this world and into a void. How this night obliterates the senses! He cannot even smell anything but pure, dry, powdery air. It seared his nostrils as if it were hot instead of so cold. But now, he can’ t feel anything. Poor man, he may collapse at any minute, dead from exposure. What will be his salvation? He thinks about praying, but his lips won’ t form the words. And how can God hear him through this silence weighted with ice? Besides, he and God are not on the best of terms right now. He knows better than to expect any divine interventions. Twin lights appear, easing their way closer, sailing gracefully over the gravelly road—the lanterns of angels. He clutches his coat around him and trudges on, not daring to hope, still too prideful to drop dead before a stranger. The car slows, stops. So does he. A window is rolled down, and a woman sticks her head out.“ Hello,” she says. “ Where are you going?”

He doesn’ t care where she’ s going, he will go there too. He will go anywhere to get away from this timeless, frozen road. He doesn’ t want to scare her off, though, doesn’ t want to seem like trouble. “Not far.”

“Want a ride?”

“Please,” he says, his voice cracking a little, like water poured over ice. She leans over and opens the door. “Thank you.” The interior of the car feels ridiculously warm, tropically warm. He rubs his hands together so that they sting and smart. He will not lose any fingers. Maybe some toes, maybe the tips of the ears, but his hands are intact. The air smells sweet, like clovers, like honey. He wonders if it is the scent of the stranger, or if he is just smelling life.“ What is your name?” she asks.

“Anatoli.”

“I am Vera. Where are you from?”

“ Moscow.”

“What a coincidence! I was recently there myself, though I live in Eysk. Why did you leave? There is nothing to be found out here.”

“My home is here. I must see to my affairs.”

They drive, neither saying anything for a while. He tries to get a good look at Vera’ s face, but this proves impossible. He can only catch tantalizing glimpses, the slight upward tilt of her nose, the long curve of her mouth.

“What company were you with?” Vera asks. He stiffens. Does she want to ask him about
the war? He is not the one to ask. He is nothing; the fact that he is still alive means nothing. War had gorged itself so much that when it finally stuffed him into its jaws, it could hold no more, and vomited him back up. Nevertheless, he feels indebted to Vera enough that he will answer her question.

“I was with the 2nd Tank Company—part of the 1st Tank Battalion.”

“Did you know a man named Innokenty Chernyshev?”

“Kesha Chernyshev? Yes, I knew him a little.” His hands are trembling, so he clutches his knees to keep them still.

“You did! Where is he? I have been searching for him; I heard he lived here.”

“ He is dead.”

“ Dead! And I was going to kill him myself. He stabbed my brother to death over a few rubles in a bar brawl.”

“How awful. Who was your brother?”

“His name was Marik Bykovsky.”

“ Well, Kesha died in Leningrad,” he assures her.

He is sleepier than he has ever been in his life. He was drowsy as a child, fatigued as a soldier, but this irresistible exhaustion utterly overpowers him. He gives a sigh that scaresVera because it sounds so final, and sinks back into his seat to rest. He does not wake up until an hour later, when the car grinds slowly to a stop. It has stopped in front of a grubby little pub that he used to frequent when he was young and foolish. His vision wavers. He tries to focus on the battered sign hanging above the door, the one spot of color in this place of chill blues and grays, and he is disturbed to find he cannot decipher it. It takes him a full two minutes to realize the sign is no longer legible. Vera has already left the car. He stumbles out after her, follows her through the rough wooden door.

The pub is filled with large, ruddy men drinking shots of oily-looking vodka. There is something wrong. It takes a moment for him to realize what it is: the silence. There is no happy chatter, no laughter. Just a low, furtive murmur, and everyone is talking carefully, as if there is something dormant they do not want to wake.

A waitress wearing a stained blouse and wool stockings that bunch around her knees comes up to them. She has a pink sonsy face and blonde braids. “Hello,” she says, greeting Vera. “ We don’ t see new faces here often.”

Vera smiles. “I’ m Vera, and this is Anatoli. I found him.”

The waitress laughs. “A castoff, is he?” He ducks his head, pulling the lapels of hiscoat around his face, appearing shy. She shakes their hands. “ I’ m Pava.” Pavlina. Pava. Yes, he knows. They—he and Vera—sit at a small rickety table, scarred with deep scratches. You and I, he thinks fondly at the table, oh, what stories we could tell.

“Pava, bring us something, could you?” calls Vera. “ I’ m parched!” A couple of men toast to that.“ Do you have any money?” She asks him. He shakes his head and gives a bitter smile. He spent it all in Moscow.

“No matter,” she says.

“I can pay you later.”

“No matter,” she says again. Pava brings them a tray with drinks. He takes a great swig, feels the liquid burning through him, imagines it thawing his organs. Vera swallows, makes a face, and sets down her glass.“ I can’ t afford more,” she tells him regretfully, then goes up to the counter to pay. He watches her. She is wearing a long, black coat and a thick black scarf wound around her neck and head. Curls of dark brown hair have escaped, and stick to her forehead like dashes of paint. He watches her mouth move as she talks to the cashier, hands him a few coins. It is a thin, expressive mouth, a mouth like a red rubber band. He realizes suddenly that he has to get to a bathroom. He gets up awkwardly—the vodka has gone straight to his head—and shambles over to the privy. Inside it is smoky and lit with an old-fashioned lamp that smells strongly. There is a cracked mirror which for a moment reflects a harrowed white face with hollow eyes like a skull’ s. When He returns to the main room, Vera is still by the register. Pava is on tiptoe, whispering something in her ear. Vera replies, makes a decisive gesture, then returns to the table. Pava comes with her, and glances at him over Vera’ s shoulder.

When they go out again, the cold is cruel. He feels like an exposed belly, and the cold is an iron knife, stabbing him. He wonders if his limbs will snap off. He wishes they would, for then he would not have to feel them. He tries to gather to himself vestiges of warmth from the oily vodka and the snug interior of the nameless pub. They walk briskly to the car. For some reason, he finds himself overcome with grief, at a time when he should be most happy and grateful. He looks out the window, trying to confine his feelings into one of the words he knows (lost, sad), when he hears the faint click of a pistol hammer being cocked. He looks over. Vera is still driving, but she is steering with only one hand. The other is holding a gun, its barrel pointed at him, the small, dark hole like a bottomless eye.

“You have been lying to me.” Her voice, as perfectly measured and flat as the beat of ametronome, betrays nothing.

“Yes.”

“I didn’ t know it was you. It was the waitress who told me who you were. She said she almost didn’ t recognize you, your face is so changed.” That was what he had been counting on.

She laughs savagely; a sound like tearing flesh. “I saved your life! I saved the life of my brother’ s murderer, when I have devoted all my time, all my savings, to hunting him down and killing him!” She has an undercurrent of a scream in her voice. “I suppose you’re going to try and kill me now.”

“You’ re the one with the gun.”

“Yes. And I will shoot you if you move.”

“I don’ t have any killing left in me,” he confides.

“ Open the door.”

“ What?”

“ Open the door. I don’ t want to have to cart your carcass around after I shoot you.”

“Please,” he says. “Please, could you just take me home first? I just want to see my home, and then you can kill me. I must know if my family is all right. After that, I’ ll shoot myself if you wish it.”

“Thank you,” he whispers, and allows his head to sink down, his torso a crumbling tower.

“Shut up!” she jabs him in the ribs with the gun, making him straighten and start. “No more words!”

After a little time, he dares to say, “Turn here,” and braces himself, waiting for a blow. He recognizes immediately the clump of birch trees that grows in the front of the house. They stand still and solemn now, a circle of dark priests, far removed from the sunny memories of his childhood, when he dangled barefoot from their patient branches. Vera stops the car, but does not turn it off. The headlights illuminate his house.

“Ah,” he says softly.

His house has been burnt down, perhaps by ravening Germans. Oh, where was the glorious Red Army when his house was in flames? There is just rubble there, lying behind the birch trees, which were miraculously spared. Sticks and stones like broken bones, he thinks inanely, looking at the charred heap. He struggles to find the proper words, tomake a fitting eulogy, but gives up quickly. There is nothing in him left to absorb this new grief. He is too cold and tired for poetry. He picks up a stone that he recognizes as having belonged to his hearth.

“Ah,” he says again. “They have left me with nothing.”

“You deserve nothing, you murderous pig, except death,” says Vera. She has come upbehind him, holding the gun. Her face is crumpled and awash with tears.

“I’ m ready to die now,” he says. The long night is over. There is a white light on the horizon, as if the inky dark is being scrubbed away. He kneels before Vera, his hands clenched over the unyielding earth. She stands there, aiming the gun at him, a shot she cannot miss; but she does not move. He thinks that perhaps she is reveling in the destruction of his home and wants him to suffer a little more, and he thinks this is fair. He tries to imagine what it will be like once he is dead, but he can’ t. All he can do is hope that it will be quiet. Not the tense quiet before a storm, when all the birds have stopped singing, nor the terrible quiet of a battlefield littered with dead, once the fighting is over. He wants peace. And perhaps there will be birch trees. He would like that. Up, up rises the slow red sun, and all the world burns. He wants her to shoot him now. The cold hurts.

“Get up,” whispers Vera. Then louder, “Are you an idiot? Can you not hear me? Get up, get up!” She stows the gun in her jacket and begins to walk away. He staggers after her stiffly.

“You promised to kill me.”

“I was going to. I still want to. But I can’ t, I can’ t. I can’ t even kill myself for failing my brother!” She raises her face to heaven, as if she expects to find Marik frowning sternly back among the clouds. “Oh Marik—Marik forgive me, I cannot kill this man!”

Disjunctive Proposition: An offering of two explanations/outcomes, only one of which can be true; the other is necessarily false. NB: Often used to misleadingly narrow the field of discussion. Always be on the lookout for further possibilities!

2.7 Disjunctive Proposition

Syncresis: The appearance of contrasting parallel clauses in tandem. Compares the subjects of the sentence, while Antithesis focuses on differing predicates and participles.

Example: “A coward dies a thousands deaths; a hero dies but once.”

III. Syntax

English already has some fairly strict rules regarding word order and sentence construction– definitely more stringent that the laws that governed Greek or Latin. Still, the language allows some flexibility, and some arrangements are certainly clearer and more eloquent than others. The rules that govern syntax are more subtle than what we have discussed previously, and are designed to appeal to the subconscious mind. The syntax is the casing in which the vivid picture of the argument is framed, and while in casual observation it may go largely unnoticed, were it to be absent, the resulting loss of structure and emphasis could only degrade to the impact of the centerpiece.

Anastrope: The placement of an adjective directly after the noun it modifies.

Fig. 3.1 Anastrope

Syllepsis: A single word (most often a verb) is used to join two different ideas or phrases, in which the word is applied with a slightly different meaning to each.